


this love is alive back from the dead

by hapsburgs



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F, F/M, Multi, canon bisexuals everywhere, what i want to happen next season tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-16 21:19:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3503138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hapsburgs/pseuds/hapsburgs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>//Peggy steals a pair of handcuffs from work, and Dottie doesn't wake up screaming again//</p>
<p>~post-series au~</p>
            </blockquote>





	this love is alive back from the dead

They find Dottie Underwood on a damp August night, air heavy with smoke and the scent of an oncoming storm, months after her disappearance.

It’s odd, how she doesn’t even blink in recognition as their flashlights wander over her, huddled in the corner by the radiator, how she doesn’t even look up at their gasps of shock, because never in a million years did the SSR think they would be finding one of Russia’s most feared spies curled in the corner of an abandoned warehouse in Queens (and though it was suspected to be a Leviathan-owned facility, they still did not expect _this_ ).

Thompson begins to take sharp, hard strides towards the blonde, probably about to toss her unceremoniously over his shoulder and throw her in the back seat of a van to head to questioning, but Peggy steps in front of him, giving him a terse look.

“Dottie,” Peggy crouches down, tense but in control. “Can you hear me?”

With all the lights shining on Dottie, Peggy can finally get a good look at her, and though she doesn’t particularly _like_ Dottie, her stomach sinks at the sight of her because Dottie does not look like the bubbly, killer agent she last saw - in fact, she looks horrendous. Though Dottie was always thin, now she looks borderline emaciated, and under her thin skin Peggy can see her slim bones jutting out at odd angles, purple bruises spreading across the plains of her. Her ankle looks swollen, probably not healed correctly since their last encounter, and her eyes - well, Peggy was a firm believer in the expression that ‘still waters run deep’, and normally that would apply to Dottie, with her steely facade of innocence hiding a trained killer, but now - Dottie’s eyes are the deadest she’s ever seen.

And Dottie still hasn’t looked at her. Her eyes are trained at some spot on the wall beyond Peggy, and haven’t moved since the SSR had knocked down the door.

“We need to get her to a hospital, and quickly.” Peggy lets out a long sigh as she rises, looking firmly at the ground because she can’t quite look at Dottie in that moment. Agent Sousa nods, stepping around her to haul Dottie into his arms, and in that moment Peggy is struck by how _small_ Dottie looks; Dottie has always been a force of nature, a definite presence, and there’s that uneasiness in Peggy’s stomach again, coming on the realization that Dottie is none of those things, at least not anymore.

“She’ll have to be interrogated.” Thompson says bluntly, turning to her as he searches for a light in his jacket pocket.

“Lord knows what’s happened to her these last few months, Jack. We’ll have to wait until she actually speaks first.” And it’s the faintest of lies, because Peggy cannot deny that even she wants to hear what words come out of the Russian’s mouth.

* * *

And then six weeks pass -

“Well, yes, _physically_ she’s fine.” The doctor brushes her off, and Peggy tries to hide her frustration as she strides after him. “She was a hell of a mess when she got here, as you know - bruising, that ankle, lost a lot of blood, malnourished - and that’s all been taken care of, but she still hasn’t really spoken. She nods and shakes her head and all of that, but the only time she’s ever spoke was to curse me off in Russian when I called her, ‘little lady’.”

Now, at that, Peggy smiles. “Thank you, Doctor.” He leaves her in front of Dottie’s room, far away from anyone else, from anyone she could hurt, and from the one-sided window Peggy watches Dottie, her hair longer and not so curly anymore, the way she kind of sits hunched in on herself, trying to hide even though no one is watching.

“This has gone on long enough, Peg. We need to take her in.” Thompson, accompanied by Sousa, appears behind her, shoulders tight and hands stuffed into his pocket.

“Look at her, Jack.” Peggy exhales. “Imagine what would happen if we tried to interrogate her. Imagine what we’d do to _her_ , imagine what she could do to _us_.”

“It’s not like we got any other choice, Peggy.” Sousa interrupts sadly. “We’re burning through too much money keeping her here.”

 

“But she obviously needs to be supervised!” Peggy crosses her arms around herself with indignation, scoffing. “Nice job the SSR’d do, taking care of her.”

“Well, who do you suggest, then? To take care of her?” Thompson snaps, and at that Peggy stills, feeling a cold shiver running up her back, setting her spine in steel.

“I will.” Peggy decides, already ignoring her colleagues’ cries of dissent. “Everyone at the Griffith thinks she unexpectedly returned to Iowa to take care of her ill mother. Her return would not be such a surprise.”

“She tried to kill you, Peg. She will try to kill you again.” Sousa says sternly, and Peggy briefly turns her attention back to the silent blonde in the hospital room in front of them. “ _You could be killed_. How do you know this isn’t what she wants? If she has been planning it all along, if she is fooling us all?”

“Believe me,” Peggy spares one last glance at Dottie before turning away. “She’s not fooling anyone.”

* * *

“Sorry, it’s a bit cramped - but then, you lived next door for a few months.” Peggy opens the door to her apartment, but Dottie makes no move to step inside. “I was kicked out, you see, but the SSR had a chat with Miriam.” Peggy finally quiets, because being around Dottie is so vaguely awkward that she can’t do anything accept chat her mouth off.

“It’s more sparse.” Dottie whispers, voice like smoke that blows away in the wind, and Peggy’s shoulders relax because this is the only full sentence she’s heard out of Dottie, and that’s bound to be considered progress (she ignores the fact that the blonde’s comment implies that she’s seen Peggy’s apartment before).

“Yes, I’ve done a bit of redecorating.” She lies, because yes the apartment is sparser but it’s only because they had to remove any dangerous objects that Dottie could use to harm herself or others.

At this, Dottie follows her inside, hesitant, quaking steps that seem so out of character. “I’ve got your clothes from your old flat, so.” Peggy watches as Dottie looks around cautiously, before focusing on the neatly made bed in the corner. “We’ll have to share, I suppose. You don’t mind, do you?”

Dottie simply shrugs before pulling her hair out of its simple twist, letting the blonde waves fall down, past her shoulders. It’s longer than Peggy thought it would be, but also duller, no longer the glowing golden of a few months ago.

To Peggy's surprise, Dottie proceeds to unbutton her sweater, throwing it on the nearby chair before shimming out of her skirt. Peggy wishes she could look away, but she really can't - now back to her normal physical state, Dottie is indeed exquisite.

"I'm getting ready for bed." Dottie's voice interrupts her thoughts, and Dottie's staring at her with those dead blue eyes, and now Peggy can feel the blush crawling up her cheeks.

Peggy makes a break for the other room to change without a word, chastising herself for being so ridiculous, for subconsciously admiring an unstable Russian assassin. When she returns, idly brushing her hair, Dottie is still staring at the bed, hands fiddling nervously at her sides.

"Is there a problem?" Peggy inquires, standing by her side.

"You don't happen to have a pair of handcuffs, do you?" She whispers, and there's a hint of sarcasm in her voice but Peggy knows she's serious.

"Unfortunately not." Peggy says dryly, and when she looks over at Dottie she can see her barely noticeable shift of discomfort. "We're not going to hurt you if you try to leave, Dottie. No one is keeping you here." She hesitantly takes Dottie's hand in hers, fingers running over her scared wrist. "You don't need them." Her voice lowers as she gives her hand a squeeze. "I'm going to be right here."

Dottie nods slightly, giving her the slightest and saddest of smiles, and when Peggy moves it only takes a half of a second for her to follow suit.

* * *

Peggy wakes up to Dottie's screams and sobs, and as she shakes the sleeping blonde awake, she wonders what horrors the girl had seen to make her so afraid.

She steals a pair of handcuffs from work, and Dottie doesn't wake up screaming again.

* * *

"I didn't know you were friends with Russian superspies." Angie corners her at breakfast, and Peggy briefly glances towards Dottie, sitting next to Helen. Helen seems not to notice Dottie's obvious boredom, yapping on and on about her newest beau, while Dottie has barely even touched her food.

"Angie, it is quite difficult to explain." Peggy sighs, not in the mood for this conversation.

"Really, English? Can't you try?" Angie raises a frustrated eyebrow.

"She's not well." Peggy steps closer, lest they be overheard. "She needs to be somewhere safe, not in an interrogation room."

"She could kill you, Pegs." Her hand is hard on her arm, eyes wary. "I don't want to see you comin' out of here in a body bag."

"Occupational hazard." Peggy shrugs, though they both know that's no defense. "I am sorry you got mixed up in all of this, you know."

"Don't worry, English - it's great fuel for my acting classes." Angie scoffs, and Peggy manages a smile. The moment is briefly interrupted by Miriam's grating orders. "God, why'd we move out of that mega mansion again?"

"We couldn't intrude on Howard's hospitality forever, Angie." Peggy reminds her. "And Miriam was very kind to let us return to the Griffith."

Angie laughs sharply before walking away. "I'm not sure _kind_ is a word I would associate with Miriam."

* * *

Every day, Peggy wakes up to find Dottie on the floor, doing pushups. Now, Peggy usually just turns over and falls back to sleep, but one morning, when the rain is tapping incessantly against the window and you can't even see outside through the fog, Peggy sits up.

"And here I thought I was an early riser." Peggy jokes, and her voice sounds too loud for the small room. "What exactly are you doing?"

"Old habit." Dottie shrugs calmly, moving back to sit on her feet, looking utterly nonplussed for someone who just did one hundred pushups. "Did you love him?"

The question comes as a surprise, and Peggy blinks. "Who, exactly?" She runs her hand tiredly though her hair, sitting up straighter.

"Captain America." Dottie replies, and Peggy can see her eyes trained on the picture of Steve on her vanity.

Peggy's heart sinks for a moment, before she replies. "I loved Steve Rogers. Not Captain America." A long silence follows as Dottie stands, tracing her finger along the edge of Steve's picture, and Peggy can't help but wonder if she should have discarded it months ago.

"Have you ever loved anyone?" Now it's her turn to take Dottie by surprise. The question is sincere, but also a little dark, a little test to see if the monster was still at work. Dottie stands to her full height, arms crossing over her chest.

"Yes."

"What was he like?" Peggy pushes gently, and Dottie's erect posture sags just slightly.

"Her name was Anya, and she was my friend." Her voice is like a blunt knife: once sharp but now hazy and ineffective with melancholy.

"What happened to her?"

Dottie turns, eyes all steel, as she sinks to the floor to begin crunches. Just when Peggy thinks she has nothing more to say, she stops, eyes locking with hers and Peggy can't quite tell the emotion in them.

_"They made me kill her. "_

* * *

Even in the dead of winter, Dottie still wears the thinnest, sheerest nightgowns, all of which are so white they blend into her pale skin.

"Aren't you cold?" Peggy asks her once, as they are buried under five blankets with a blizzard raging outside. "Your feet are freezing."

"New York is hardly Russia." Dottie murmurs, curling as deep as she can into the blankets with one arm handcuffed above her head.

Now, at first Dottie slept as far away at Peggy as possible - on the other end of the bed, facing away from her. But as of late, Dottie had slowly been moving closer and closer to a normal distance, her feet now close enough to bump into Peggy's and sometimes she wakes up with a face full of blonde hair.

"What was your name, in Russia?" Peggy whispers to the ceiling when Dottie is finally finished fidgeting.

"Agent 326." Dottie says. " _Agent_ , like you."

"And before that?" Peggy turns on her side to face her.

Dottie does not answer right away, but eventually she closes her eyes and says, "Tatiana,", low enough that it almost gets lost in the howling wind. "My name was Tatiana."

" _Tatiana_ ," The name rolls off her tongue, and for a second the image of a small blonde in a ratty coat standing in the freezing snow fills her mind.

"I like Dottie the best." The blonde sighs, and this is the first time she has ever told Peggy anything about herself without prompting, so Peggy curls closer, all ears.

"Tatiana was meek and afraid - a lonely little girl. " Dottie starts, "And Agent 326 was a machine, a robot made by her country, designed to do their bidding. But _Dottie_ \- Dottie is everything I wanted to be, growing up. _Normal_. Like you."

"I wouldn't say I'm particularly normal." Peggy laughs slightly, and Dottie's smile is brittle.

"More than me." Dottie glances at her. "I wanted to be anything except this."

"Well, you're Dottie now, and deep down you've always been Dottie." She props herself up on her elbow to look down at her. "Not Tatiana, and not Agent 326. And Dottie is not a bad person."

"Do you really believe that?" Her eyes snap up to meet Peggy's, and she's never quite seen that depth of emotion of them before, that kind of desperation and need for acceptance.

"Of course, Dottie." Peggy replies, surprised at her own honesty. "Misguided, perhaps, but not bad."

"Misguided," She repeats with a sharp laugh. "How vaguely optimistic."

Peggy curls back in bed with a tired smile. "Oh, I like to think so."

* * *

**  
**"Bring me to Brooklyn." Dottie says one day over coffee at the Automat, and it's not a request but an order. Peggy looks up in surprise from her paper to see Dottie still working diligently on her crossword. **  
**

"Brooklyn? Why?"

"I'm not particularly fond of New York, to be quite honest, but you once told me to experience the city fully I had to go to Brooklyn."

"Well, yes, but -"

"So bring me to Brooklyn." Dottie blinks. "Unless it's a problem because of Steve. He was from Brooklyn, wasn't he?"

"Yes." Peggy breathes, shocked by her sharp perceptiveness. This is certainly not the wide-eyed, innocent girl from a few months ago. "But that's not a problem."

"Good, we'll go today." Dottie stands abruptly, folding her paper under her arm, and she looks a tad shocked when Peggy doesn't immediately follow. "Unless you have other plans?"

"No, but-"

"Then let's go!" Dottie grins, and it's the first time Peggy has ever seen her smile, so she gladly agrees.

* * *

"I've never been to the beach before." Dottie takes a satisfied lick of her ice cream cone.

"Well, Russia isn't known for its beaches." Peggy points out, pulling her jacket tighter around her as they walk down the boardwalk. Okay yes she decided to bring Dottie to Coney Island, and yes it's corny and ridiculous but she thought Dottie would get a kick out of it - and she did, watching the acrobats and bearded ladies and all the other attractions with amazement.

Suddenly, a seagull comes swooping down, squawking obnoxiously, flying dangerously close to their heads, and Dottie drops her ice cream in surprise.

"Oh, fuck." Dottie grumbles, and Peggy bursts into laughter because _this_ is the real Dottie, the one she hasn't ever let herself be.

The confusion that draws over Dottie's face makes Peggy laugh harder. "How is this funny?" Dottie demands, but there's a smile curling at the corners of her mouth, and soon enough she's laughing along with Peggy.

It's the first time she's ever seen Dottie laugh, and her entire face lights up when she does. She privately wonders how long it's been since the blonde has laughed, since she's let herself be happy.

There's something about the way Dottie walks, as they move on, smiling, that makes Peggy ask, "Do you really know ballet?"

"Of course," Dottie laughs, moving in front of her. " _Assemblé, battement glissé, brisé from fifth._ " The way Dottie moves is hypnotic, utterly graceful and disciplined, and Peggy can't stop watching her. " _Chassé, fouetté en tournant_." Dottie practically turns right in to Peggy, and Peggy catches her before she can lose her balance.

"Perhaps you can make a career with the American Ballet." Peggy jokes, and Dottie smiles shyly, shaking her head. "Did Leviathan teach you?"

"They needed some excuse to keep 28 girls boarded up." She nods, looking away and towards the ocean.

"What did they do to you, Dottie?" Peggy sobers, watching the blonde tense out of the corner of her eye.

"Well, Leviathan doesn't like loose ends, especially those who've been compromised." Dottie doesn't meet her eyes, her voice low and Peggy can hear it crack on the last syllable. "Do you really want to know?"

"No, I don't." Peggy decides a beat later, before linking her arm in Dottie's. "It doesn't matter anymore."

* * *

And one night, months and months later, Dottie doesn’t wear her handcuffs to bed. It’s spring, nearly a year later, and a cool wind is blowing through the open window, the sky almost all black, but still touched with navy, and the sound of traffic far below echoes off of the walls.

Peggy watches her store the cuffs in the very back of her bottom drawer, and doesn’t say a word as Dottie slips silently into bed.

Dottie sleeps right next to her that night, close enough that Peggy can feel her heartbeat right against hers. Peggy steadies her breathing, closes her eyes, and waits for Dottie’s breathing to finally slow until she’s finally asleep. And who can blame her if sometime during the night, her hands find the blonde’s under the sheets, fingers linked?

When Peggy wakes up, she’s surprised that it’s actually a reasonable hour, and even more surprised that Dottie is not doing pushups in the corner, but still in bed, fast asleep. Now usually, Dottie’s features would draw together in confusion or sadness or something in her sleep, some sign of a nightmare, but today all of her face is nice and smoothed out and it’s the most content she’s ever seen her.

Peggy rolls over, propping herself up on her elbows to look down at Dottie, but the motion somehow disturbs Dottie, and she makes a small sound of discontent that Peggy can’t help but laugh at before lazily opening her eyes.

“Sorry to wake you,” Peggy smiles down at her, and Dottie sighs slightly before tiredly smiling back. “No cuffs and no early morning workouts. Curious progress.”

“Maybe I’m just tired.” Dottie raises an eyebrow as she shifts to sit up, running a hand through her hair.

“Whatever you say, Miss Underwood.” Peggy jokes before sobering because there’s something about how the morning sunlight catches Dottie’s hair and the curve of her lips and the look of her eyes that makes Peggy sit up quite suddenly and instead of Dottie blinking in surprise, moving backward, her pupils dilate and bites her lip _just slightly_.

“Peggy,” Dottie whispers lowly, just a hair’s breadth away from her, but Peggy’s lips are on hers before she can finish her thought, hands in her hair and body arched right against hers. Dottie tastes faintly like mint toothpaste and just a hint of danger, and Peggy can feel Dottie’s lips curve into a smile against hers before the blonde’s hands sink down her waist to her hips.

“What?” Peggy breaks apart from Dottie when Dottie begins to laugh, and Dottie’s smile is infectious, not at all like the cruel, half-mad ones of a year before.

**  
** “Miriam,” Dottie giggles, pressing her forehead against Peggy’s, letting Peggy bring her hands down to encircle her neck. “She’s so concerned about men dishonoring her ladies that she doesn’t even realize the real threat is already upstairs.”

**Author's Note:**

> yeah so well in my mind Leviathan goes after Dottie because she's been compromised and they torture her and shit idk that's the general idea


End file.
